James Gunn reveals his first contact with Marvel Studios goes way further back than you might think

These days, James Gunn is sitting at the very peak of superhero cinema. After a barnstorming run of hits with Marvel Studios, he’s jumped ship to the distinguished competition. Gunn is now steering the future of the DC Universe on the big screen for Warner Bros. , with work beginning on the hotly anticipated Superman: Legacy.

But it wasn’t always this way. Over a decade ago, eyebrows were raised when Gunn was announced as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy. Before that, he’d directed two flops: Slither (now a cult classic) and Super, and was known for his screenplays for Dawn of the Dead and the Scooby-Doo movies.

Gunn has spent the weekend answering questions on Threads, and along the way revealed that Marvel Studios were interested in him way earlier than most had assumed:

This would have been around 2005-2006, when Gunn made a name for himself as a hot new screenwriter. Clearly, someone over at the studio was a really big fan of 2002’s Scooby-Doo and figured that Marvel Studios needed to tap that magic.

As it turned out, betting on Gunn paid off. The Guardians of the Galaxy movies have taken a little-loved superhero IP and turned it into a billion-dollar smash – just 10 years ago, the notion that obscure Marvel characters like Rocket Raccoon or Groot could be up there with Captain America and Iron Man in terms of popularity would have sounded absurd.

But here we are, and no doubt Warner Bros. will be hoping he’s going to sprinkle a little of that Gunn magic on the beleaguered DCU. Here’s hoping he does, though whatever he turns out has to be an improvement on The Flash, right?